Anxiety – what it is

Anxiety is the state of feeling inner turmoil in an individual and it is often linked with nervous behavior like rumination, somatic complaints and pacing back or forth. Anxiety is a biased feeling in individuals about events that they feel can occur for instance, death. Anxiety does not in any way resemble fear or an immediate threat. Anxiety is a combination of worry, fear and uneasiness. It is usually accompanied by restlessness, fatigue, lack of concentration and muscular tension.

Categories of anxiety

There are various categories of anxiety. To start with, panic disorders affect individuals making them feel terror continuously and suddenly without warning. Panic is also associated with chest pain, sweating, irregular and strong heart beats. Individuals also feel chocked which can result to hearts attack.

There is also social anxiety which brings about a lot of worries in individuals especially if they find the social situations not favorable. The perceptions and judgments by other individuals can worry one especially if one behaves in a way that is different from the rest. This kind of anxiety results from the fear of being embarrassed, jeered or ridiculed by the members of the society. The other type of anxiety is the specific phobia anxiety. This is the fear that individuals develop towards a specific situation or object for instance heights, snakes or flying. The fear in individuals leads to avoiding such like situations. There is also the generalized anxiety that entails unrealistic, excessive tension and worry for no reason.

What are the symptoms?

The different types of anxiety have got different symptoms however; there are symptoms that are cross cutting to the different types of anxiety. The symptoms include uneasiness, panic and fear. In addition, individuals with anxiety have got problems with sleep; they also have sweaty feet or hands and short breath. Anxious individuals can never stay calm and still and have heart palpitations. Moreover, their mouths are very dry. They tend to have nausea, muscle tension and tingling in their feet or hands. Besides, anxious individuals are also very dizzy in most cases.

Reducing anxiety

Anxiety like other problems that affect the mental activity of individuals can be taken care of by various channels. This has been possible because of the discoveries in the field of medicine. The drugs that help in the reduction of the symptoms associated with anxiety include anxiety reducing medication and anti-depressants.

Psychotherapy also helps in reducing the problems associated with anxiety. Psychotherapy takes care of the emotional responses to the mental problems that people have. Psychotherapy is effective because it helps in understanding the problem prior to dealing with it. Cognitive therapy can also help in correcting the negative thought patterns that individuals are likely to have. The negative thoughts have the effect of bringing about feelings that are not healthy at all and can result to individuals developing a lot of worries.